“Ah! don godd sens’!” cried Clotilde,
lifting her head up suddenly with a face of agony.
“’E reg—­’e reggo-ni-i-ize
me!”

Aurora caught her daughter’s cheeks between
her hands and laughed all over them.

“Mais, don you see ‘ow dad was
luggy? Now, you know?—­’e goin’
fall in love wid you an’ you goin’ ’ave
dad sadizfagzion to rif-use de biggis’ hand
in Noo-’leans. An’ you will be h-even,
ha, ha! Bud me—­you wand to know wad
I thing aboud ’im? I thing ‘e is one—­egcellen’
drug-cl—­ah, ha, ha!”

Clotilde replied with a smile of grieved incredulity.

“De bez in de ciddy!” insisted the other.
She crossed the forefinger of one hand upon that of
the other and kissed them, reversed the cross and
kissed them again. “Mais, ad de sem tam,”
she added, giving her daughter time to smile, “I
thing ’e is one noble gen’leman.
Nod to sood me, of coze, mais, ca fait rien—­daz
nott’n; me, I am now a h’ole woman, you
know, eh? Noboddie can’ nevva sood me no
mo’, nod ivven dad Govenno’ Cleb-orne.”

She tried to look old and jaded.

“Ah, Govenno’ Cleb-orne!” exclaimed
Clotilde.

“Yass!—­Ah, you!—­you thing
iv a man is nod a Creole ’e bown to be no ‘coun’!
I assu’ you dey don’ godd no boddy wad
I fine a so nize gen’leman lag Govenno’
Cleb-orne! Ah! Clotilde, you godd no lib’ral’ty!”

The speaker rose, cast a discouraged parting look
upon her narrow-minded companion and went to investigate
the slumbrous silence of the kitchen.

CHAPTER XXXVI

AURORA’S LAST PICAYUNE

Not often in Aurora’s life had joy and trembling
so been mingled in one cup as on this day. Clotilde
wept; and certainly the mother’s heart could
but respond; yet Clotilde’s tears filled her
with a secret pleasure which fought its way up into
the beams of her eyes and asserted itself in the frequency
and heartiness of her laugh despite her sincere participation
in her companion’s distresses and a fearful looking
forward to to-morrow.

Why these flashes of gladness? If we do not know,
it is because we have overlooked one of her sources
of trouble. From the night of the bal masque
she had—­we dare say no more than that she
had been haunted; she certainly would not at first
have admitted even so much to herself. Yet the
fact was not thereby altered, and first the fact and
later the feeling had given her much distress of mind.
Who he was whose image would not down, for a long
time she did not know. This, alone, was torture;
not merely because it was mystery, but because it helped
to force upon her consciousness that her affections,
spite of her, were ready and waiting for him and he
did not come after them. That he loved her, she
knew; she had achieved at the ball an overwhelming
victory, to her certain knowledge, or, depend upon
it, she never would have unmasked—­never.